Max Verstappen has downplayed the link between Adrian Newey's departure from Red Bull and his car's dip in competitiveness.
Newey, who has confirmed he will join Aston Martin next year, announced he would leave his role as Red Bull's chief technical officer in May and has been phased out of work on the team's Formula 1 car since.
Verstappen won four of the five races this year while Newey was still involved, but the reigning champion's advantage relative to rivals McLaren narrowed significantly at the Miami Grand Prix in May and has been overturned in the second half of the year.
Asked whether there was a connection between Newey's departure and Red Bull's struggles, Verstappen said: "I wouldn't say so, but of course when it [Newey's departure] was announced, that's when it started to go a little bit wrong for us.
"But I think it started to go wrong for us a little bit before but we didn't really see that at the time.
"I personally don't think it's related -- that is not to be negative towards Adrian -- but I don't see it as something related but something that creeped in over time."
At the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, Verstappen matched his season-worst race finish of sixth place, which allowed title rival Lando Norris to close the gap in the standings to 62 points with eight rounds remaining.
After the race in Monza a fortnight ago, Verstappen said beating Norris to the title was becoming "unrealistic" based on his current form, but ahead of this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix he is hopeful lessons from the last race will help Red Bull improve.
"We still have a lot of work to do, but in a way Monza was positive to learn more about the car, basically," Verstappen said.
"Now, it takes time to make the car better. Understanding our weaknesses I think we did, and now it is about trying to find solutions for it.
"I also know it is not coming in one or two weeks from when you understand your problems. I hope that from now onwards we can just look ahead and try to be better and not like in Monza."